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A few years back, I was moved by MIchel Faber's fabulous The Crimson Petal and the Black (2002), which also concerned a vulnerable yet brave victim of Victorian hypocrisy trying to make her way in a revolting, terrifying world of misogyny and classism. Reading modern accounts from that dreaded time might be more pertinent and certainly less tedious than rifling through hundreds of pages of Dickensian caricatures, the sentimental and grandiose poetry, the barely rebellious heroines. This short and uproarious bit of black comedy reinforced my conviction that the Victorians are more fun to make fun of from the distance of now than to meet them on their own terms. As the screw turned another 180 degrees into an absolute blood bath worthy of the Game of Thrones, I felt an enormous satisfaction and vindication. For years and years I read of governess types, from Jane Eyre to Maria von Trapp, who passively waited for someone to marry them while lovingly mothering their charges. Sure things got out of hand here and there, but none of these simpering lasses could stare down Ms. Notty. Disgustingly gorey, unflinchingly brutal, finally a governess that really gives that society what it had coming. Absolutely punk rock black humor.

couldn't wait to read this one, because I read about the man who could not stop eating years ago and thought, hmmm, weird. Was he a medical abnormality? OR a 600 pound life contestant that was just ahead of his time, dropped into a land of dearth and war, dreaming of a future of full of trans fat and superstores? Voraciously brutal and peppered with such unusual verbiage that I wondered vaguely where my dictionary was and if I should be worried about my SAT scores, I considering shelving this next to my food books. How outraged my lovely books extolling the history of beans and salt and mushrooms would be, sitting next to this hapless hungry peasant, this poubelle sans fini. Surely the other books would squeeze together, vomit him onto the floor, and if they could, beat it with a stick. There was so much beating with sticks going on, so many hungry crabs in a barrell. So many injuries of the body and soul. How one could dwell in the terrible world of Tarare/late 18th century France and still wake up with enough will to go on- wow, I say. The magic is in the rendering, because writing about human misery on a small and grand scale without being too much for me to put the book down while still being too much for me to read without nausea is no easy feat. "If you are being beaten, you must curl into a ball to shield your softer parts" advises one character. I felt like I needed to shield my softer parts every damn page. The writing was too good and the story too unique to give it a poor rating, and I might even be remiss in giving it a 4, bu though the animal cruelty, the petty viciousness, the unquiet desperation. In short, it was real downer, but too weird and wrought to be dismissed. Questions I still have include, did the golden spoon kill him and isn't that a little silly? Would the rat, horse, baby, be improved with cooking? Is he a metaphor or a victim or a victim of metaphor? Why did he go evil? that did not seem to follow. I didn't need to know about the kittens though. Fuck that edit it out put it in a box three hundred feet below an active volcano and save it for another species to find.

I read this book because I am afraid of death and cancer, and I believe in hospice services and the value they provide. In that regard, there was nothing new-acceptance, society's death phobia, the importance of having a living will, death comes when it feels like it but never at the right time, dying sucks but you might get lucky and hallucinate at the end, religious jackasses want to keep you from your right to die or that is, your right to not be in horrific pain in your final days. None of that was new and has perhaps been more eloquently expressed elsewhere.
Rather, what I really loved about this book was the author's personal story and connection to her work, and her frank leveling with the non-dying about our inevitable end. Her ordinary life is laid plain, she believes in herself, she is bold and honest. Many bios and memoirs are about extraordinary people, famous politicians or scientists, trailblazers, artists, or people who were murderous monsters or were murdered by murderous monsters. This was about a nurse with perhaps more spunk than most people, but other than that, she is just a normal person, living as much as she can, clearly flawed, average American. She is perhaps unusually determined, reflective and good at self-promotion. I was absolutely inspired by her self confidence and conviction. She also appeared to actively work on her empathy, which I thought was good food for thought. Her profession is truly heroic, and that is a fact.
She remarks at her discomfort when people call her an angel given her past, (which is in my view was not that wicked at all) but this angel of death, for some reason, made me feel better about my own ordinary life, even proud of it, and she succeeded in giving me some peace about death. She gave me hope that ordinary people can do extraordinary things like write books, maximize themselves, keep chickens and attend to the dying, and that however unlikely, maybe but probably not, there is an afterlife. I hope she finds time for a few more cases.

The fun factor on this book is five stars. I found I could not stop exclaiming. DID YOU JUST DO THAT? (introduce a parodic fate character who weaves) WTF (with the Island mistrustful of outsiders trope) HAHAHAA (was that a Vanished reference redone?.) The author anticipates your skepticism and valiantly distracts and misdirects you. Just let it happen because no matter how incredulous you might be, the end is hilarious and worth it.
I was so charmed that suspending my disbelief became a labor of love. The atmosphere of a remote Scottish island in the Hebrides is just where you want to be. The hodgepodge of your favorite characters plucked from Wickerman, Gone Girl, Macbeth, sundry horror movies/ thrillers and transformed with a good dose of female power are so fun. Even the plot twists were torn from here and there and remade with such dramatic aplomb that what stands is a mighty fine story. I chuckled, shook my head, and delighted in the revenge. It was truly the best thriller I have read in a long time. I would love to see the movie, and I love that this island exists, even if it is in Alice Feeney's imagination.

There are not enough stories in this world, I have often thought, of people shitting themselves on buses. I know a guy who got food poisoning from a pizza hut in India directly before getting on a bus for thirty hours, and had to puke and shit out the window for twenty hours or so. I myself puked from food poisoning in Nepal while on a short bus ride to the plane, and nobody seemed to think it was a big deal. In Africa they are not so tolerant, but shitting yourself on a bus is still way better than being a witch.
I have to say that none of these stories made me want to visit Kenya or Tanzania but at the same time I was delighted by the oddity of each of these strange tales. It is like you sit down in a forest, leaves rustle, and you see a striped tail and later on a shiny ear and woosh each animal is gone and you are like, huh, what the fuck was that?